


shattered glass

by amorekay



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorekay/pseuds/amorekay
Summary: Humanity. Mother loved them. Found them strange and interesting creatures, perhaps, but loved them and believed in them. Mother was so benevolent and kind.Mother—didn’t have flaws.But Rhea knows the truth now.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 39
Collections: In Time’s Flow





	shattered glass

**Author's Note:**

> This is my companion piece for track 21 Dying of the Light on the fan album In Time's Flow. You can find the full album on bandcamp here: https://fe3hfm.bandcamp.com/album/in-times-flow and see more of what FE3H.FM is up to @fe3hfm on twitter. Check out the booklet for the art and writing accompanying each piece!
> 
> Thank you to my collaborators for such incredible musical inspiration (@choiby on twitter) and for the beautiful art (@vuric_ on twitter) that captures Rhea so well. This piece was my attempt to also do such a complex character justice!

In the cathedral, Rhea lurches forward on unsteady feet. How strange a thing it is, the awareness of one’s mortality. The whole of one’s existence stretches, fractures, breaks—shattered panes of glass reflecting back all the different fragments she once was. She has lived many lives and feels the weight of them all; old and tired and still too young all at once. 

She was a child of the Goddess once. She lived where sand and dust settled perpetually upon tall pillars of stone, where there was always a fine sheen to the steps of grand buildings, where all the elegant architecture was carved right into the heart of the valley. Mother—Mother was at the true heart of it all, wise and regal, clever and playful, always able to tease Rhea out of her most solemn moods. There was never a lonely moment in such a place. Surrounded by her siblings, all born from the same gift of precious blood, she was part of a wondrous civilization. A civilization that sought to share its bounties, along with Mother’s infinite wisdom, with the many seekers of their knowledge. The humans. 

Humanity. Mother loved them. Found them strange and interesting creatures, perhaps, but loved them and believed in them. Mother was so benevolent and kind.

Mother—didn’t have flaws.

But Rhea knows the truth now. Humans are so fragile, brutal, easily corrupted when not guided by those wiser and more measured than them. They fight so easily, start conflicts and wars and burn their own homes to the ground. Burn the homes of others to the ground, massacre each and every innocent soul for their own selfish gains—

How happy they were, back then. 

How she longs for those days. Centuries pass with a swiftness that increases over the long stretch of her life, as humans live and die and make foolish choices and rare—so rare—commendable ones, in their short existences. And she, as Archbishop, stands with watchful guidance over them all, ever a reminder of the Goddess’ presence. Fixed and permanent. In solitude. 

No one passes into her domain without her gaze upon them. She sees the faithful seeking comfort, the students here to learn at the monastery’s behest, the merchants here to sell their wares, and—on a less common occasion like today, the mercenary bands, always crass and overly familiar like their kind. This group becomes notable only for the old friend she finds among them—a friend she had long since thought slipped from the edges of her sight. With him, in an even more unusual and welcome surprise, he brings his grown child. 

The child looks at her with eyes so ancient. For a moment, time is frozen, as the realization crystallizes into a single droplet of hope falling upon the waters of her most precious wish, sending ripples through dreams once still and silenced. Her hand, raised in greeting, falters. 

The child unmistakably has Sitri’s eyes. Dear Sitri—so gentle and kind, given so short a time upon these grounds. Rhea’s heart grieves and yet sings beneath its sorrow.

Her mother’s heart. It’s home again. 

How joyful a moment it becomes, a moment for Rhea to add to with warm and benevolent words, welcoming the child and father—this old friend, who did her such a kindness and paid dearly for it, more than a century past—to the monastery with all the archbishop’s graces. Fate has smiled upon them to bring this child back after that terrible night, such a short blink of a lifetime ago, when all had been cruelly ripped from her once more, as fires had burned. 

As she had burned. And burned before. 

_He _brought the stolen knowledge of fire upon their great civilization. He—that bastion of humanity’s true evils: plunderer, despoiler, treacherous bandit-king. In his wake, the canyon burned.__

__With the cruel instrument of her mother’s heart and bone he approached them as a butcher, and used them thus—cleaved apart their limbs, rended their hearts from their breasts and made trophies out of his vile sport. She heard tale of the weapons made; his traitorous thieves yet defile her kin in battle. How her brothers and sisters must writhe and scream in agony—never at rest._ _

__The injustice done must be answered by man and beast alike, as he and his thieves are surely both. The weight of their great sin stands as a cost more vast than debts can measure, but every drop of stolen blood fallen from their veins is repentance for this violence wrought. Her armies will march. Nemesis will fall._ _

__In the molten hot crucible of rage, Seiros is born._ _

__

__All of her choices reflect back at her in fragments of broken glass, shattered and strewn across the ground, the only remnants of stained glass windows in the ruined cathedral. No light shines through them now. This place, her place, is ruined._ _

__She thinks of the mercenary’s child, with hair and eyes so like her own, looking at her with an expression she so dearly hoped was her mother’s—but it was nothing like she remembered, nothing like the smile she can call up when she thinks of those happy days so long ago. And she thinks of the weight of the bones—singing to her in familiarity, in horror—gathered in her arms from a man’s bloody corpse, how easy a human was to rid of life, and how they were nothing like the light touch of her mother’s hand. How no matter how long she seeks, she can’t find the warmth and comfort that once bathed her so completely. Her family is gone._ _

__Her mother is gone._ _

__Everything is ruined, even here. Rhea sinks to the floor and sobs._ _

__She has been many things. She will be the last and final child of the Goddess for as long as she remains._ _

__How happy they were, once._ _

**Author's Note:**

> check out the album at https://fe3hfm.bandcamp.com/album/in-times-flow and at @fe3hfm on twitter!
> 
> my personal twitter is @[amorekays](https://twitter.com/amorekays) and you can retweet this fic there!


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